Guest Post: Cheating - Competition’s Great Equalizer?

Back in the wild-and-woolly days of the
American West – encompassing much of the second half of the nineteenth
century – the Colt revolver was said to be the “great equalizer.”It
promised to wipe out any gap between weak and strong, claiming to put
every man at the same level of strength – beastly level, one need to
add.

In a capitalist world where competitiveness
appears to be the only “worthwhile” trait to have in order to survive
and thrive, ethics be damned, we seem to have found a new version of the
great equalizer; one which doesn’t shoot bullets but which narrows or
makes go away the gap between the more gifted and the gifted-not.It’s called cheating, and it can operate in any field of endeavor.In
Western societies, ours to be sure, we excel in its use in politics,
economics, business, education… and the more obvious these days, in
terms of press coverage, in sports – through the use of illegal drugs.

Cheating has achieved art form, particularly
in business, politics and sports; and the public has come to accept this
cheating behavior shrugging their shoulders.“They all do
it” has become the rationalization to accept not just the fame and
celebrity of major personalities (sports heroes), but also the
detrimental acts so often perpetrated by those who yield power over us:
business moguls and politicians.“They all do it”
rationale has brought us all to the level of co-conspirators since this
is a game we all must play; there’s no room for spectators since the
outcome of those acts affect not just our well-being, but the dignity,
or lack of it, in which we view ourselves.

If cheating is so endemic in our capitalist
way of life, why do we act so surprised when it affects other areas of
our society, such as religion, the judicial system, and now education?Aren’t some areas sacrosanct, immune to major scandals?Definitely not!Capitalism without appropriate rules and controls also implies competition without rules or controls.And
in this environment of the survival of the fittest, fittest being
people who possess the wealth and power, those who disagree with the
politics and policies of the rules-imposers feel that they, too, need a
great equalizer.

And that happens to be the problem we face these days in American education.The
biggest cheating scandal to date, other than perhaps the cheating
scandal by the midshipmen at Annapolis in 1993, has just been made
public by the office of Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal, via a released
report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation; a report that names 178
teachers, school principals and administrators in a conspiracy to fix
answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), and also
punish whistle-blowers.

The Atlanta public
school system, where the cheating took place became a model to emulate
by thousands of other school systems in the nation.It was also rewarded with additional funding from the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation.Yet,
the rise in scores which took place during last decade in this large
school district had to do solely with teachers and principals erasing
and changing test answers.

And what has happened in Atlanta could turn out to be the prevalent theme throughout the nation, something we are not ready to admit.And why is this occurring? Are teachers as a group less ethical than members of other professions?A
resounding no to that; it’s simply that teachers became the guinea pig,
were marched against the execution wall by a capitalist system that
sees competition, no matter how unjust or unreasonable, as the only
answer to everything in society.

Against teachers’ reasoning that quantifying
improvement was a monumental task at best, and something inoperable at
worst, teachers were forced by the political system to reluctantly
accept “improvement” as the one and only option.Not only
were all variables hard to measure in order to establish a base in a
society not just ethno-socially diversified, but economically growing
more and more unequal. And with the economy playing havoc
with those in the lower economic strata in these past four years, more
and more people becoming poor and homeless, how are you going to account
for a base that is deteriorating?No… don’t blame the politicians, just blame the teachers for our economic and social ills!

Unfortunately what happened in Atlanta, and
most likely repeated in much of the country, has played into the hands
of proponents of rapacious and heartless capitalism that see
competition, often unhealthy competition, as the basis for a just
society while, in effect, the opposite is true.Sadly,
those teachers, principals and administrators who cheated did so out of
selfishness and perhaps their own survival, instead of standing in
solidarity with others in their profession.

The Colt revolver was the wrong kind of equalizer in the 1800’s and cheating is the wrong kind of equalizer in the 2000’s.Hopefully, a lesson has been learned.

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Something which has basically become part and parcel to the online experience, where basically any game you play is so rife with cheating (often with the implicit help of the company running the game *cough*Square-Enix*cough*) that you either have to cheat or you are no longer part of the process.

Same can be said in economics. You don't have enough resources, post-tax, if you aren't one of the elites, to take part in the real economy without some form of cheating or leaving the process (going Galt).

And as far as the public schools and NCLB are concerned, get back to me when a public school is anything more than a sports camp and a violence-enabler by said athletes.

when the rule of law becomes an instrument to tolerate & reward perversity, the system ends up with lots of perversity. we suffer from too many smart people gaming the system rather than rebelling against it. that will change.

Maybe the problem is they're lazy? Do people really not understand the issue of why a large cross section of America is non competitive in the work force? Why don't they try addressing the issue of lazyness before we start throwing more money it?

I'm not sure if it's possible for this country to get back on it's feet. I honestly think it's terminal in the sense that everything has become so perverted and disjointed that it would take a full on revolution to fix. I don't see that happening in my lifetime but who knows.

Coercion, violent or otherwise, has always been a historical method for imputing work from others. Serfdom, slavery, pressgangs, indentured servitude, peonage, you name it, we've had it for most of recorded human history.

BUFFALO, NY - Golfer Tiger Woods, NFL stars Takeo Spikes and Jamal Lewis were mentioned during the court appearance in which Dr. Anthony Galea, the Toronto doctor accused of distributing performance-enhancing drugs to pro-athletes in the U.S, took a plea deal Wednesday.

Galea is a renowned physician in the area of sports medicine, and his client list includes dozens of athletes playing in the NFL, Major League Baseball, and other professional sports leagues.

Galea was arraigned in US District Court by Judge Richard Arcara on five felony counts, before quickly pleading guilty to one of them; Introducing mis-branded drugs into interstate commerce, which--under federal sentencing guidelines, he faces up to two years in prison and a $40,000 fine.

In addition, Dr. Galea, who possibly faces suspension of his medical license in Canada, will forfeit $275,000 to the United States Government.

The plea allowed Galea to escape prosecution on more serious charges, including smuggling, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Galea admitted he brought or arranged for the importation of unapproved drugs, including human growth hormones (HGH), into the United States.

Though it was further alleged that Galea used those drugs to treat athletes in the United States where he is not licensed to practice medicine, he did not have to admit that under terms of the plea.

This prompted Galea's Canadian Attorney Brian Greenspan (who did not represent Galea on the criminal charges he faced in the U.S.) to state to reporters, "this resolution confirms the position that Dr. Galea has always maintained. That he has not nor has he ever been involved in performance enhancement of athletes."

However, that statement flies in the face of the allegations laid out in the indictment handed up against Galea by a federal grand jury, and based largely on the testimony of a former assistant of his who was stopped at the US border in September of 2009, and whose arrest lead to the charges against Dr. Galea.

According to border agents at the Peace Bridge, she was found to be transporting human growth hormone, and other drugs and medical supplies in her car.

The assistant, Mary Anne Catalano, almost immediately began cooperating - according to federal prosecutors - who say she agreed to testify against her boss, even saying that he instructed her to explain that she was headed to a medical convention if she was ever stopped at the border.

Catalano identified 23 athletes during interviews with U.S. and Canadian authorities whom she said Galea treated in the U.S. Catalano said she frequently accompanied Galea and met with athletes in "hotel rooms and their homes" to provide various medical treatments. Along with paying for the treatment, Catalano said the athletes also paid all travel expenses for herself and the doctor.

Prosecutors revealed on Wednesday that Galea collected $800,000 from those athletes over the course of two years, for drugs valued at no more than $70,000.

Greenspan, noting some of the billing was for travel expenses, insisted Galea did not seek to profit, but to charge amounts commiserate to the amount of money he was losing by leaving his Toronto based clinic and traveling to the U.S. "Dr. Galea is a healer," Greenspan said.

Catalano told authorities she witnessed Galea inject a cocktail mixture containing Nutropin [growth hormone] into the injured knees of "at least seven athletes" while in the U.S. There is no approved test to determine HGH use, but the substance is banned by the major professional sports leagues.

Greenspan insisted several times while speaking with reporters that they pay particular attention to the only charge Galea admitted to, which he characterized as a "shortcoming as set out in the agreement", to wit: medications which "although routinely used in Canada, and elsewhere in the world, did not bear the 'Rx' symbol or directions in the English language which are required by American regulation."

However, one of the substances, Actovegin, which is a drug extracted from calf's blood, is illegal in the United States and not approved for use in Canada.

"We don't have it on our books," Karen Riley, a media officer with the FDA, told the Los Angeles Times shortly after Galea was indicted. "It would have to go through an FDA approval process, and I don't have any record of that product."

When we pointed that out to Greenspan, who described himself as an attorney with a long and accomplished career of teaching and practicing law while representing a litany of high profile clients, he replied that we were "misinformed".

When 2 On Your Sides Dave McKinley pressed him further on that point and other issues which seemed to conflict with assertions of prosecutors, including that Dr. Galea was not licensed to practice medicine in the U.S., Greenspan called McKinley "the rudest journalist" he'd ever met.

"He admitted to not only bringing in unapproved substances into our country repeatedly, but he also practiced without a license, supervised the criminal conduct of others, and obstructed justice by having his assistant Mary Anne Catalano lie that she was attending a medical conference," said U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr.

According to ESPN, the smuggling charge presumably arose from Catalano having told authorities that Galea had her travel to Germany in 2007 to purchase Actovegin from a pharmacy, with her also telling investigators that other employees and athlete patients had purchased the drug in Germany and brought it back for Galea.

Catalano has already reached a plea agreement and is expected to be sentenced next month.

Woods, Spikes, and Lewis were only referred to as clients of Dr. Galea in court. It's not clear if they received drugs from Dr. Galea.

Click on the video link above to see Dave McKinley and Marissa Bailey's report.

With all the rules we have, using the term cheating doesn't really mean anything anymore. What is wrong is what is unjust. If these teachers cheated the rules to teach the kids, I'd be fine with it. If they cheated just to get the feds off their back, I'd be fine with that. That is just. To cheat in order to benefit themselves at the expense of these poor kids is a great injustice. A long time ago, people started changing 'thou shalt not murder' to 'thou shalt not kill' in order to forget justice. Chesterton said it best when he said murder is not wrong because it is violent but because it is unjust. Cheating is only wrong if it is unjust. Unfortunately no one knows what justice is anymore. Today the term 'social justice' is used for a policy of unjust redistribution and cronyism.

As long as we don't cheat quite as much as those we compete with or are affected by in other ways, we can claim the high ground...........which in the slave mentality world means we are the glorious and helpless non responsible victims. Thus we aren't responsible both for our own actions nor those of the "bigger" cheaters.

The beauty of the system is that the moral high ground is shared by everyone in the game (including the slave masters) using a never ending concoction of rationalizations, justifications and outright denial.

God Bless the New World Order........same as the old world order only bigger, badder and even more insane.

yes and no, true christian values could never be supported by the system we have, which is why i always find it so amusing when people would support bush or any politician who promised them Federally Sanctioned Christian Morals™.

false prophets abound in this nation, some of the most ethical and morally minded people I know are in no way christian, or even religeous, I don't see it as a lack of christianity, but in a lack of understanding for what christ was actually trying to explain.

The game of cheating, the only game where not playing is the worst option. Play fair you get ground into dust or converted into a cheater, but if you don't play at all or back out... you get enslaved for life. Thanks for playing. Plus, the intellectual barriers to entering the cheating game is so stupefying that the lone average Joe is really just red meat at the retirement buffet.

Fuck the banks. Tell me why again that they get the magical power to impose interest and debt on "money" that is just created by them computed/printed/fabricated into existence... out of thin freaking air! It's a big fucking joke. They create money. We work our asses off to get the money, and then pay the interest for the pleasure of said money being created by our freindly super bank. That simple. We borrow "our public money" and pay private interest. The cheating game.

And just to be sure they can't be stopped the Global Bank Cartel shipped most U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas, created a majority voting block of people either working for the Government or sucking on the Government teat, and made sure the average kid can't learn much in our public schools.

Great stuff. Isn't what we are seeing a return to tribalism? Tatoos, ignorance, dog-eat-dog mercantilism, no moral ground, might-makes-right, relativism, pride without achievement, broken families, drugs, anything goes, subjectivity of truth, and the death of God. Isn't it all laid out in the bible? Unfortunately, without the bulwark of morality and achievement Mother Nature will reduce our ranks to that of hunter gatherers.

Spot on. And without getting into an argument as to the truth of the Bible (as if that were possible - and for the record, I am on the side of the Bible), the loss of the morality prescribed for Christians (even if that were just a cultural affiliation and not a true belief), has led to the decline. [I'm not arguing that Christians are or were perfect] Shame has been lost in society. Without faith, and without shame, there is no reason not to "get what's yours".

And that will be the downfall. Without cultural honesty and without shame, cheaters do prosper. That discourages those who otherwise would be honest, and they begin to cheat, tolerate it in others, or at least be tempted to do so.

All the more so when cultural heroes are those who lie, cheat, steal, or kill or pretend to do so. Tony Soprano is a hero. "Boy scout" is a pejorative term. Anti-intellectual feelings are encouraged in TV and movies. Smart people are nerds and dorks, and definitely not to be emulated.

The reaction to the cheating and other changes is to tighten the rules, encourage lawsuits, increase dependence on government. All result in more powerful and more obtrusive government.

The honest rail against it, but realizing you can't push a string, give up or give in. They stop running for office then stop voting altogether.

It can be subtle or it can be overt, but it all amounts to peer pressure to do the wrong thing. It is the catalyst that is required to allow (or encourage) destruction of society.

Apparently corruption and cheating are not subject to shame though. So where is it a prime mover?

I didn't say all would be right. I said this decline would not happen. If people had morals (from whatever source), cheating would not be as rampant, and certainly not glorified.

Finally, I deny your standard theocracy strawman. The last thing I want is for "the church" to be in charge. That, as was proved in the past, is a recipe for corruption. I'm talking about faith. I'm talking about the desire to do what's right, even if you fall short on occasion. That's a huge difference.

Without faith, and without shame, there is no reason not to "get what's yours".

Bullshit. Moral behavior is not a consequence of Christian belief. The golden rule is just as applicable to any rational atheist. Some of us don't need to believe that a man in the sky is shaking his finger at us in order to see that corruption and graft are ultimately self-defeating activities.

And I would disagree anyway. Corruption and graft may be self-defeating for society as a whole, but not for individuals. Quite a few are making a boat-load of money at it, as is discussed on virtually every ZH thread.

What is certain is that with the further concentration of wealth and power increasing - great good or great evil will be accomplished - in accordance with the character defects/positive attributes of those holding that power.

It is always "unfashionable" in modern America to be a realist - but suffice to say - I am not optimistic.

I never cheat and I am appauled when people do; oddly, however, I kind of understand and accept that it is a part of human nature. In some respect, one man's 'cheater' is another man's 'doing whatever it takes to [ win | survive | get the job done ]'. People like shortcuts. With that said I imagine that a large majority of those seeking shortcuts find themselves at deadends.

"I never cheat." Wrong mentality. This is just more fingerpointing garbage. Until we realize that the system is so fucked that we are all effectively cheaters, then this "I'm better than you" nonsense will prevail.

There are two evolutionary successful strategies for humans: the Co-operative and the Parasitic.

Progress of a society depends on the balance of these two. Although the predominance of the former is required for long term progress the predominance of the latter can function quiet long as well. At least until the last productive member is cannibalized.

a colt is a technology. we invented it. rules are also something of our invention.you cannot properly analogize the effect of a tool [the colt], to the effect of the absence of a tool (people not following the rules tool). your horseshit argument looks like the following

tool : effect :: lack of tool : similar effect.

colt : evening :: lack of rules : evening.

and then you say the colt was the wrong type of 'equalizer' , where did you pull that out of yoour ass from?

Cheating, dishonesty, and corruption is abhorrent. It's a human frailty, not that of an economic system.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."---John Adams, (Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 10-11-1798)

There's a huge difference between cheating in business to out perform your competitors and cheating in education. We do want children to learn what is being taught to them, right? The goal in education is not passing a test. It is learning. Comparing capitalism's competition to education's is absurd. When you cheat to pass a test, you are cheating yourself and everyone else involved. Would you want someone working for you that does not have the qualifications and skills they told you they had?

This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.John Perkins

I apologize for lying to you. I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort.Spiro T. Agnew

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.Theodore Roosevelt

Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.Jackie Mason

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.Mark Twain

A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.Mario Puzo

The US has always rewarded cheaters since its inception. The US citizens have been cheating on their standards since the start, proclaiming freedom and maintaining slavery, proclaiming respect of property and stealing a continent.

Did your precious little country somehow magically arrive when the earth cooled? The entire land face of the planet has been the scene of people moving, going, coming, pushing others out, strong take over the sweet spots, etc.

So it was okay when the different tribes and groups in what is now called Europe fought each other for land, but somehow it's wrong that folks came to the now US and settled?

Hmm.. quick question, where do you think the "original" inhabitants of the Americas came from? A space ship? The ones on the continent in 1492 were the strong ones that had not been pushed off to points farther south...

Did your precious little country somehow magically arrive when the earth cooled? The entire land face of the planet has been the scene of people moving, going, coming, pushing others out, strong take over the sweet spots, etc.

Apparently, humans as a species appear in a certain corner of the Earth. Meaning that the first dwellers poured into territorities that were devoid of human presence. So...

So it was okay when the different tribes and groups in what is now called Europe fought each other for land, but somehow it's wrong that folks came to the now US and settled?

Still a strong difference between doing what is deemed illegal/immoral by one's own standards and acting accordingly with one's law/morality.

The US has been claiming superiority in terms of law, rules and morality (read declaration of Independence) to behave the same in the end but with higher magnitude.

It is called duplicity.

So yes, US citizens have been constantly cheating on their own standards.

America is, and has always been, the "land of opportunity" (for cons, grifts, embezzlement, theft, extortion, coercion, and predation), and the home of "the American Dream" (comic genius George Carlin covers the later well). Nothing new under the sun gents, rose colored glasses and nostalgia not withstanding.

What is the alternative - the example set by the hypocritical eurotrash cocksuckers?

Europe loves overthrowing governments for oil access too - whether it is France and Italy in Libya or Spain and the UK in Equatorial Guinea.

Then there's whole European fetish for outright bribery that is continually on display. While bribes may not be tax deductible anymore, the executives at Total had no problem distributing suitcases of cash to foreign despots even while management was on trial for corruption the Elf scandal. In addition to the oil for food scandal that should have created a Franco-German unity behind a defendant's table, there's the Clearstream affair, and the Yamamah bribes. Airbus is a continual parade of both corrupt and inefficient management, if it weren't for Boeing dropping the ball on its Dreamliner global assembly model and union problems with the NLRB, Airbus would be due for another TBTF bailout. For OUTRIGHT TBTF LEGAL IMMUNITY look at the Lloyd’s Act. Racism- look at animals on display behind the fences of the banlieues. The brutalization of Africa didn't end with deGaulle's departure- French trained, equipped, and “supervised” Republican Guards in Guinea-Conakry have "conveniently" eliminated all opposition to pro-French usurpers to the presidency since 1984, the French press doesn't complain until they start to misbehave by raping and murdering a stadium of protesters calling for elections.

The only thing more pathetic and laughable than a eurosnob would be a wannabe eurosnob in the US.

There's no such thing as cheating in a fight or a war. Again, comparing educational goals with those of business and military is absurd. I want my children to learn what they are being taught. Everyone should. If we do not uphold any standards for our educational system, we shouldn't be surprised by the lack of knowledge and skills on the part of those in it. Everyone always complains about the lack of quality in government education, but those same people refuse to uphold any standards. Then we wonder why Americans are falling behind.

Your moral relativism and flexibility is hypocritical, if not disturbing.

All competition IS a form of warfare (behaviorally), and warfare is an expressed form of competition. Pick up a sociology or anthropology book sometime and educate yourself, or watch nature practice "natural selection". It is no different for humanity, we're evolutionarily programmed to do "whatever it takes" to get ahead, be that in a fight or in any other heavily regimented and arbitrary constructed "competition" (i.e. "education", online games, whatever). Fight or flight.

Either there are rules (or laws or values or morals if you prefer, however legitimized or coerced), or there are not. The "choice" of picking and choosing which ones to abide by to suit one personally is the epitome of self-centered sociopathic behavior. It is not different in "special cases" (or when personally convenient) because an individual perceives it to be, it is your own perception that is skewed. Personal responsibility and resolve are not negotiable or arbitrary, one either has them or does not.

Sociology and Anthroplogy is it? No wonder you haven't a clue. You can learn nothing of practical value from the "social sciences" that preach nothing but collectivist and marxist drivel.

Education, at one time, educated, but since the rise of these pseudo sciences and there indoctrination into the education system, no-one is allowed to fail lest it put a stigma on poor little Johnny or Jane.

That's right, it's these pseudo sciences, that you promote, that have insisted that we can't trust our own judgement, that we must seek our self esteem from the group, that we are victims, and incapable of purposeful action because reality isn't real and our perceptions can't be trusted.

Crawl back into your hole you dipwad, and take your marxist, collective bullshit with you.

Lol! Did you even bother to read the article before opening your idiotic mouth?

Since the answer is obviously no, let me sumarize: He asks a philosophical question about fundamental human behavior.

What 'squishy' sciences study human behavior? Right. Or perhaps we should just base arguments on relativistic asinine personal opinions of idiots like you instead?

Guess the Greeks and Roman's did not have a clue either then, since The Classics (The Republic comes immediately to mind), Aesop's fables, philosophy, and ethos are also based on empirical observations of human behavior. Or perhaps they were communists as well way back then.

Let's try natural laws then, i.e. hard science- Do lions "cheat" to get the gazelle? Is natural selection or evolution "cheating?". Are poisonous tree frogs socialist hippies for being poisonous to consume? When survival favors one behavior or adaptation over another, is that also squishy communist social sciences at work?

Are the laws of physics or thermodynamics subject to moral relativism of any kind, or will nature always take the path of least resistance?

Much like other living things, humans adapt their behavior to whatever their environments or circumstances incentivize such adaptations. Given the right circumstances, i.e. if sufficient perverse incentives exist or competition is sufficiently acute, "cheating" as a competitive adaptation inevitably occurs. This is proven documented empirical, observable, reproducible fact, not theory or opinion.

The level of idiocy on display by so many is perplexing. Go back to nowhere, nowhereman, you mental midget. And please do not pretend to lecture anyone on what education used to be decades ago, I'm 60 and experienced it firsthand.

"The Colt revolver was the wrong kind of equalizer in the 1800’s and cheating is the wrong kind of equalizer in the 2000’s.Hopefully, a lesson has been learned."

What a pathetic end to a pathetic article! Nanny-Statist propaganda.

The "mayhem" of the old west -- where everyone was allegedly running around shooting anyone else who moved or blinked is statist propaganda. Check the statistics.

Cheating in the modern era is a direct consequence of the education system being diverted into State worship rather than academic development. Back in the old days --"when things were rotten" -- parents taught their children principles ... Don't lie...Don't cheat...Don't steal...Don't hit. School then taught them how to read, write and calculate.

Now children, from the age of 2 onwards, are simply taught, by parents and a dozen different 'social science' subjects, to blindly obey 3,000,000 every-varying rules -- with more rules and rule-changes being passed every single day by school, local, state, federal and international "authorities" -- related to everything from what they can and can't legally say, through what they can and can't legally wear under every conceivable circumstance, to what mandatory equipment their car must legally have and how to keep a sharp lookout for the 20 conflicting speed limit signs they will pass on their way to and from college each day!! Some recent "laws" passed by congress run to over 3,000 fucking pages each!!!

snowbull777, you quote the bible while using the derisive "teabagger"..the logic fails you are so shattered by inconsistency...however there is truth in your "desire is the root"..a buddha plus on that one.

A fiat education is tailor-made for a fiat economy. Finally, we have teachers teaching real-world skills. /sarc

Gold is the modern equalizer.

Ben Stein's conjecture of persistent unemployment was that those people must be difficult to work with. An in-depth study of the unemployed might reveal that when business conditions are the toughest, workers who can bring in the numbers, by any means, are more likely to be retained. Taking this cynical view, that also means that those with more questionable scruples are ultimately the ones who reverse downtrends.

The author reads as if he's making excuses and says the opposite of competition is the solution? Give me a break. A Colt was the answer to the problem of the day. A firearm allows anyone from the weak to a child to defend their life against an aggressor. Try that with a knife or sword. Suggesting the quote or concept behind that marketing was anything else is laughable.

Educational standards are still the answer today too. It disgusts me that we have an article on here making excuses for cheating. Do we want children to know the subjects they are taught or not? The goal of a business is to make a profit. Cheating to make a profit should be expected. The goal of getting an education is to be educated. Cheating to APPEAR as if you were should NEVER be accepted.

Competition? There is little competition to the Atlanta public school system. The cheating there was not to win a competition, but just to cover their butts because they don't really want to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. They were just cheating to save their jobs.

Actual competition would make this type of cheating moot.

If there was a voucher system, this kind of cheating would not work so well. Folks who care, know when their kids are learning something real, and when they are not.

Parent's who don't care might still use the public school system, but that would like be due to a whole new sales pitch, such as offering bus pick-up service at your door, after-hours and before-hours baby sitting, meals and so on.

The goal of education is not for children to learn to be independant rational thinkers, it is to create a docile collective. Capitalism, by which I mean "true" capitalism, has really never been given a chance in this country. There has always been someone who, through political favor, or government sanctioned coercion, have managed to control the market. Rules in capitalism were designed to protect a contract between individuals. They are necessary so that everyone can understand their position in a transaction. Without these rules one cannot make a rational decision.

In today's society, where rules are meant to be broken, it is extremely difficult to make the rational decisions required to function efficiently. This has been made possible by the foresaking of rational self interest, and the blind acceptance of collectivism.

Collectivism comes in many forms, socialism, fascism, naziism, communism, racism, feminism, statism which all have the same thing in common, the collective trumps the individual.

The welfare of the group takes precedence over the welfare of the individual. The last thing the education system wants to create is rational individuals. Rational individuals ask too many questions. Rational individuals understand the concept of justice, and rational individuals are harder to control. Therefore, it is the educational system's primary function to create docile little sheeple, totally confused and easily manipulated.

Rational individuals understand the concept of cheating, and can even see why it seems to have become commonplace. The collective demands it. How else can you explain how governments, by use of force, can take from you the products of your labor and distribute it to those who are unable or unwilling to produce it for themselves?

This is the penultimate form of cheating and it is practiced and accepted without question

The collective demands it, and the sheeple acquiesce, just like they are taught to by an education system designed for just such a purpose.

The story about cheating in the Atlanta school system is very distressing and I'm sure it's happening nearly everywhere. The Denver Post constantly runs stories about achievement test scores. Some teachers are cheating, some are incompetent, some are trying to save their jobs and some just want to get through the day. It is the government that is most to blame. The civil rights movement pushed for better jobs for minorities. Business said okay but we need to see certain skill levels for those positions. We noticed that school systems were inadequate in poor districts. We tried to improve that but throwing money at it didn't help. Parents were not insisting that children work at learning. Discipline was impossible to maintain. So then we tried affirmative action and racial quotas for college entrance and business hiring. This sometimes meant that better qualified persons didn't get the spot they deserved. Injustice causes resentment and cheating.

Teachers are under a great deal of pressure to show improvement in test scores. How can they do that if students do not want to or cannot improve? I am not defending this cheating, only saying that under the circumstances how could you expect anything else?

I think we should go to a voucher system. Allow schools to expel students who are disruptive or who don't want to learn. This system is depriving good students of a decent education and America of a viable workforce. It is bringing everyone's children to the lowest level instead of providing a path to excellence.